Hi Sleuths Magoo. I'm not engaged. I have had the same boyfriend for many years but once I got a diamond ring out of him I realized I was done. My bourgeois longings were fulfilled and I lost interest in getting married. Still, if I had to do it, my dream wedding would take place in Hole in the Rock in Moab, Utah (gts) and be officiated by Nile Rodgers. The theme would be Disco Underground. The colors would be denim and gold chains. There would be a reception in the petting zoo and champagne-drunk bunnies, and a string quartet playing "I Want Your Love" with abundant pizzicato. Wanna come?

I just finished Nile Rodgers's autobiography Le Freak, which is a great music bio (if you like those) which will renew your appreciation of disco, baby. I also just finished Edmund White's Jack Holmes & His Friend. That one's also really good, especially if you like penises (and who doesn't?). It might have the most penises in it of any novel that is not porn. Though not a lot of different penises--many aspects of one penis, more like.

I've never even heard of the Two Dollar Radio! It sounds small.

Hi Hannah. I'm sorry I've let your question languish for so long. I don't know! I don't have an answer! Have I decide to be a writer? I thought I'd leave it up in the air for a little while longer.

Good question, William. Dialogue is strangely hard to write, especially considering that we speak and listen to each other all day and often continue into our dreams. Most of this talk isn't memorable, but occasionally it is, and these locutions are the ones worthy of dialogue. You can probably remember three or four things your father once said to you, or your ex-girlfriend or history teacher, and the reason you remember is because these utterances were shocking, funny, unexpected, or puzzling. Some were probably lies; others were revelations; probably none were exposition (unless it was of the barest, most life-changing kind: "Your mother and I are getting divorced, sugarpie").

Here are some rules (which you can break, but they're good to know): in literary fiction, dialogue should reveal character, not forward the plot. The exposition goes in the narration (a little can go in the dialogue, but just a smidge). No planning! There's nothing worse than suffering through a discussion of what to have for dinner. Also: do not make your characters endlessly address each other by name. (In real life, people only call each other by name when they're echolocating or want something). Don't put in introductory clauses: "Oh, I was just thinking that maybe it would be a good idea if..." Or: "Hello. How are you? Gee, really?" Don't put that stuff in. In fact, you can usually take off the first four words of each sentence of dialogue and it will still make sense, but it can get a bit Hemingway-macho if you do a lot of that. "Said" is a good word. Use it a lot. Hardly ever use competing words like "replied," "interjected," "exclaimed," or "repeated." If this drives you crazy, an alternate way of attributing dialogue to a character is to precede or follow it with a physical description. This works better in the middle of a run of dialogue than at the beginning: Sheila stanched the wound with a tea towel. "I've always hated that damn cutlass." I know, it seems like a "said" would be nice, but in the middle of a conversation, you won't miss it.

You can listen to how people actually talk in order to get a lifelike feel to you dialogue, but you still have to try to make it interesting. What people actually say is boring unto death; a little exaggeration and a sense of drama is better than authenticity. John Cheever was a master at this, though part of what he was doing was contrasting his beautiful, mellifluous, erudite narration with blunt, exaggerated dialogue--not a bad strategy. Read authors you like and see if you can figure out their strategy, their pattern of attribution, all that.

First-person narration can get a little talky too, so many of the rules above also apply. The trick is to inhabit your first-person narrator like an actor, but don't get so into her head that you let every stupid thing she thinks flow straight into your prose (or even every quirky, smart, interesting thing). Not enough is always better than too much. Ha ha ha ha. Ha. That's what I say.

Another literary convention (usually dispensed with in genre fiction) is to NOT include a physical description of a first-person narrator. I like this convention and command you to use it. That means no mirror passages, you know, where the character looks at himself in the hall mirror and riffs about his hair, etc. No passages where the narrator studies/describes his graduation photo, musing on the passage of time. (This is because it's artificial and therefore distracting and also, the more genre conventions you put in your work, the harder it is to get a Guggenheim, even though it may not necessarily make your work any better or worse. Also, no happy endings. Sad and ambiguous is the name of the game.) You have to be a psychologist, or at least a student of human nature and your own inner dialogue. People think about how they look a lot; they just don't think, of themselves: "I am a portly fellow with a belly like a half-inflated beach ball." Rather, they think: "I feel fat."

Traditionally, first-person narrators are liars, half-crazy (Eli Sisters), demented/sick(Humbert Humbert), or articulate observers who are almost entirely separate from the action of the story (Ishmael). Either that or else they are really nice ladies. Or flawed teenagers. Food for thought.

Hi Kayla. I'm ashamed to say that I hardly ever read plays. You've probably heard of the ones I've read, like No Exit and Hamlet. I'm so retarded that it's never even occurred to me to read any. Do they have a special section in the book store? I bet they do. Sorry.

No Tom, I don't think I have, though I often want to put song lyrics in stories. (This is a bad idea, since song lyrics are copyrighted and you have to get permission to use them). Song lyrics have a way of lodging in people's minds, whether you like music or not. I'm struck by how they sometimes serve as weird harbingers of the unconscious: I can't tell you how often I've found that the song going through my head reflects on what's happening at the moment. More like texture within a story than inspiration for the whole thing.

Elation! Pickles, you're fantastic. That's the best news report ever. My favorite part is when she says, "My husband ripped off his C-pap machine..."

Here's the URL: http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/pet-house-cat-attacks-owner-10543505

Hi Liam! It's been so long! I was sick for my birthday and watched birds and ate food. Are you in France?

Titles show up for me at different points when I'm writing, but it's nice when they show up fairly early. I like titles that are descriptive (by that I mean obvious) and either add some dimension to the story or guide you toward the place where the meaning is located. At. What I mean to say is the place where the meaning is located at.

I've never started with a title but I'd like to. I have a list somewhere. Ah, found it. My favorite is "Dog at Large," the legal term for an off-leash dog. I picture a legal thriller where all the mayhem starts with one bad doggie.